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I haven’t abandoned my passion for photography, it’s just been put aside with everything else I’m doing and working on. I’ve revamped the MadeMark Photo site to make it more interesting to me, and I’m hoping it will get me out there more with a camera swinging around my neck.

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My partner Frank and I were in Doylestown this weekend, waiting for the first service on the new Prius V we bought a year ago. It takes all day, so we headed in the loaner to Doylestown for a lovely day of walking around and checking out the shops.

A highlight of the day was walking into Vintage Doylestown, which is exactly what the name implies: as store chock full of stuff, vintage items, buttons, whatever you can name, they have. And best of all was Debi Seltzer, the owner. Sometimes you meet people with the most incredible energy who make you feel welcome, and you just want to hang around talking all day. We couldn’t, but we bought some things (hint to my sister Cathy for Christmas) and I knew when we left I had to pass the word on this place. If you’re in Doylestown, make this a must-stop.

The entire spectrum of Republicans, from the dwindling and increasingly impotent establishment to the shrill, irrationally furious Tea Party (aka Christian extremists), is telling Akin to step aside. Not because his comment was, as they claim, terribly offensive, but because he made the mistake of being very plain spoken about what they think: despite having plenty of women in their ranks, the core of the GOP considers, at the deepest level (so deep they probably can’t admit it to themselves), women to be property, in spirit if not in law. As for girls? Forget it. If things go their way we could someday regularly see 12 year old girls giving birth to their father’s (or uncle’s or brother’s) children from incestuous rape because, well, the Bible tells them so. (Their exemption-free prohibition on abortion, as expected in their party platform, is not balanced by any call to make impregnating a woman or girl through rape or incest a capital crime; that would at least make the transparency of their anti-female worldview a bit more opaque).

This discussion blindsided me a bit; I was expecting to just have a light-hearted chat with our guest about the entrepreneurial spirit and taking risks to follow our passions. Instead I was reminded of the proposed GOP platform, and in it, a plank opposing marriage equality (of course) but – how exciting! how gracious! how kind! – extending “dignity and respect” to all people, which means us.

Think about it: the Republican Party is willing to extend dignity and respect to LGBT people, as if these are things that can be extended. Or maybe they’re acknowledging our worth, however diminished it is compared to theirs. It reminds me of the unfortunate embrace of “tolerance” in our culture, as one may tolerate a rodent as long as it isn’t eating the cereal. I have no interest in being tolerated. Nor do I fall for the poison flowers of “dignity and respect,” much as a snake might offer to a mouse before she eats it.

“Dignity and respect” are meaningless, words meant to mollify and deceive. It is equality, and nothing short of equality, we demand, whether it is offered or not.

The entire spectrum of Republicans, from the dwindling and increasingly impotent establishment to the shrill, irrationally furious Tea Party (aka Christian extremists), is telling Akin to step aside. Not because his comment was, as they claim, terribly offensive, but because he made the mistake of being very plain spoken about what they think: despite having plenty of women in their ranks, the core of the GOP considers, at the deepest level (so deep they probably can’t admit it to themselves), women to be property, in spirit if not in law. As for girls? Forget it. If things go their way we could someday regularly see 12 year old girls giving birth to their father’s (or uncle’s or brother’s) children from incestuous rape because, well, the Bible tells them so. (Their exemption-free prohibition on abortion, as expected in their party platform, is not balanced by any call to make impregnating a woman or girl through rape or incest a capital crime; that would at least make the transparency of their anti-female worldview a bit more opaque).

This discussion blindsided me a bit; I was expecting to just have a light-hearted chat with our guest about the entrepreneurial spirit and taking risks to follow our passions. Instead I was reminded of the proposed GOP platform, and in it, a plank opposing marriage equality (of course) but – how exciting! how gracious! how kind! – extending “dignity and respect” to all people, which means us.

Think about it: the Republican Party is willing to extend dignity and respect to LGBT people, as if these are things that can be extended. Or maybe they’re acknowledging our worth, however diminished it is compared to theirs. It reminds me of the unfortunate embrace of “tolerance” in our culture, as one may tolerate a rodent as long as it isn’t eating the cereal. I have no interest in being tolerated. Nor do I fall for the poison flowers of “dignity and respect,” much as a snake might offer to a mouse before she eats it.

“Dignity and respect” are meaningless, words meant to mollify and deceive. It is equality, and nothing short of equality, we demand, whether it is offered or not.

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About that Krugman-Ferguson cage match over Obama’s competency: I’m a big Paul Krugman fan, when I can make it through one of his columns without my eyes glazing over, but he can’t match Niall Furguson on the cute-o-meter.

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About that Krugman-Ferguson cage match over Obama’s competency: I’m a big Paul Krugman fan, when I can make it through one of his columns without my eyes glazing over, but he can’t match Niall Furguson on the cute-o-meter.

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From the Wall Street Journal:
NEW YORK — Muslims gathering to celebrate the end of Ramadan at a New York City park found uncooked bacon scattered there, and police are investigating it as a possible hate crime.

New York Police Department investigators believe the same person might be behind an anti-Muslim Internet posting, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Monday.

Kelly declined to elaborate on the posting.

In a statement, the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations cited a report that the posting read in part, “I am going to walk my pet pig and i am gonna let him (defecate) ….just in time for morning prayers.”